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Apple still runs the infrastructure for handling the unlisted app, like storage costs and bandwidth costs. I believe unlisted apps still have to go through revi
by kccqzy 5y ago
Apple still runs the infrastructure for handling the unlisted app, like storage costs and bandwidth costs. I believe unlisted apps still have to go through review, so there's human cost in that as well.
- NateEag 5y agoWhich has to be covered by the $99 / year developer program fee, in aggregate. Sure, a few apps will cost them massively more than that, but most will take five minutes of reviewer time every six months and a few gigs per month (or year) in download bandwidth.
- enos_feedler 5y agoAre you trying to decide what revenue goes to cover which cost for a company worth $3T?
- grishka 5y agoAnd by the way, they have so much money sitting in banks doing nothing, they could as well just start giving everything away for free and it'll last them for 20 years.
- can16358p 5y agoIf they were a charity or non profit sure. But why on Earth a for-profit company, whose reason for existing, by definition, is to make money, would give away money?
- grishka 5y agoBecause it has already made several orders of magnitude more money than an amount it would know what to do with? I don't understand this whole idea of keeping on increasing your profits when you already make enough money thousand times over.
- rlt 5y agoEmployees and other shareholders benefit when the value of the company increases. Why is that hard to understand why they'd want to increase profits?
- grishka 5y agoEmployees get their salaries either way. Shareholders? They do nothing useful for the society and won't be missed. The way I see it, companies literally ruin the world for mostly imperceptible, and mostly abstract, benefit of the very few.
- Ntrails 5y ago> The way I see it, companies literally ruin the world for mostly imperceptible, and mostly abstract, benefit of the very few. How do you build a car without a company? How do you get 100 people to work together? How do you get components, carry out testing, and still keep people "fed and watered"? The only other answer I have ever heard is "the state".
- grishka 5y agoI don't mean "don't earn money at all and go full communism". I mean "stop making active steps towards increasing profits when your income already covers your expenses ten times over". I also meant "for-profit", and probably publicly-traded, companies specifically. A company doesn't have to be of this type. There are privately-owned companies that build products people genuinely love. There also are nonprofits.
- Ntrails 5y agoPrivately owned companies merely enrich their owners. If anything they are more likely to prioritise profits. Large charities accumulate wealth endlessly through active fundraising despite having enough to cover their costs for over a decade. The issue isn't the collective fiction of the "company", it is "humans" and an inherent greed and self centredness (imo)
- markovbot 5y agoYep, you've correctly identified the problem!
- glaive123 5y agothis reply is brilliant, well done.
- NateEag 5y agoNo. I'm just saying that the cost of the average app developer team is likely offset by the income Apple makes from the average app developer team. Whether that's how they spend the money, I have no idea. I don't need to know how they spend it to guess that the costs and income probably roughly balance out.
- grishka 5y agoA free (ad-supported or fully free) app that's very popular and updated frequently (requiring more reviews) would cost them a lot more than an app that has in-app purchases but only gets updated once a year. Yet the latter app would earn them more. Something doesn't add up here. And yes, that $99/year developer account fee, it exists.
- etchalon 5y agoI don't think the math is that hard. Apple uses paid apps to subsidize free apps.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- NavinF 5y agoYeah won’t someone think of the $3.50 in storage and bandwidth.
- grishka 5y agoAnd a $15/hour reviewer who has no idea what they're doing spending a minute looking at your app.
- ViViDboarder 5y agoI hate this argument. Ok, so they think they should be paid for that, fine. So, what if I want to do all that myself then? Oh, no? They won’t let me? It’s not compensation for services rendered, it’s a toll or tax on their platform, regardless of their services offered.